Rhiannon GiddensIt's been a year since Rhiannon Giddens and Eric Avery graced Factory Theatre's stage to make a Bluesfest Sydney pit stop. Like last year, Avery warmed the room with a mixture of musical traditions - a jam where somehow violin, didj, double bass and acoustic guitar melded seamlessly. Avery still wonderfully defies classification.
Soon after, Rhiannon Giddens and her super-tight band took the stage. She seemed a little subdued in her body language at first, although there was nothing lacking in her sound - from Dylan's Spanish Mary to her own heartbreaking new track At The Purchaser's Option. Songs of strong women and civil rights struggles were more than done justice — they were brought to life and danced through the room with a determined voice and energy. In between folk songs, led by her banjo and voice, Giddens and co sawed away with traditional two-steps and "fiddle tunes"- Strings from her bow literally coming away as she played, rising up above her like a musical halo. Her now-signature version of She's Got You damn near made for a mid-set standing ovation (not bad when you're competing with Patsy Cline, who first recorded this song), before Birmingham Sunday, another track from this year's Freedom Highway, tore at our heartstrings. Written by Richard Farina and made famous by his sister-in-law Joan Baez, the song recounts the firebombing of an Alabama Baptist church by the KKK and the four young girls that were killed as a result. Giddens made a point of naming the girls who lost their lives - Addie Mae Collins, Cynthia Wesley, Carole Robertson and Carol Denise McNair. "We need to know more about these events so we can make them stop," she said.
It wasn't until towards the end of her set, in between sips from a metal coffee mug, that Giddens confessed, "I'm fighting some serious steroids and tonsillitis - don't think we're jerks if we don't play an encore." As if the set hadn't already been impressive enough.
